Synopsis

Gavin Stone, a washed-up former child star is forced to do community service at a local mega- church and pretends to be Christian so he can land the part of Jesus in their annual Passion Play only to discover that the most important role of his life is far from Hollywood.

We are officially in the worst time of year on the home market. The last of the major Awards Season players have already come out, but it is still too early for the Spring hits to be released. The competition from May Sweeps and the start of the Summer Blockbuster Season means there’s not a lot here that’s going to do well in DVD / Blu-ray sales. Ironically, the lack of a major release means there are a lot of smaller releases that are competing for Pick of the Week, many of which would be lost in the crowd during a busier time of year. This includes I Am Not Your Negro, The Salesman, Real Genius, and Seven Days in May. In the end, I went with The Red Turtle on DVD or Blu-ray as the Pick of the Week. In the meanwhile, Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone on Blu-ray gets the Puck of the Week honor, as the “best” Canadian release of the week. I just wish it were coming out in 3D.
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It was a surprisingly strong weekend at the box office, no thanks to the new releases. Split easily won with $25.66 million over the weekend, well ahead of A Dog’s Purpose, which earned second place with $18.22 million. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter got off to a fast start, but collapsed over the rest of the weekend. Finally, the less said about Gold the better. Overall, the box office was really strong with $141 million. Granted, this was 2.5% lower than last week, but it was 1.3% better than the same weekend last year. This growth is entirely due to Split’s hold plus the Oscar bounce a number of films got. Year-to-date, 2017 has earned $929 million, which is 4.7% lower than last year’s pace of $975 million. It is still too soon to make any real predictions for 2017’s long term success. That said, 2017 did cut into 2016’s lead and it is now down by $46 million or 4.7%.
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The overall number one film, Split, was also the only film in the $10,000 club, earning an average of $13,170. The closest competition was Tanpopo, which earned $7,677 in one theater during its 13th week of re-release.
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Split dominated the weekend box office earning $40.01 million, which is nearly double predictions and nearly double its nearest competition, xXx: Return of Xander Cage. The overall box office still shrunk from last weekend, but it was down just 3.2%, which is excellent for a post-holiday weekend. Compared to this weekend last year, 2017 was 27% stronger. Year-to-date, 2017 is still behind 2016, but that gap has closed to 9.4% at $736 million to $812 million.
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2017 has its first surprise hit. Split is set for a weekend just north of $40 million, according to Sunday morning’s projection from Universal. That’s not just the biggest weekend of the year so far, but it almost doubles the $22.8 million earned by Hidden Figures a couple of weeks ago, and moves the studio ahead of Fox as the leading distributor for the year so far. It also marks, of course, a return to form for M. Night Shyamalan. It basically ties the debut of The Last Airbender back in 2010, and his last movie to do significantly better on opening weekend was The Village, which started out with $50.7 million in the Summer of 2004.
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It is a deceptively busy week with five films opening or expanding wide. At least that’s what the dsitributors are saying. In reality, there are only two truly wide releases, xXx: Return of Xander Cage and Split. There is also one semi-wide release, The Resurrection of Gavin Stone, as well as two semi-wide expansions, The Founder and 20th Century Women. Return of Xander Cage and Split are the only two of the films that have a shot at the top ten and they could be in a close race for first place. This weekend last year, there were three wide releases, but none of them made significantly more than $10 million at the box office. The biggest film of the weekend, The Revenant, earned just $16.01 million. 2017 could finally win in the year-over-year comparison.
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Next weekend is busier that we were expecting. We thought there would be three films opening or expanding wide, but we have an additional film opening semi-wide and another expanding semi-wide. That said, xXx: Return of Xander Cage is still the only film that has a real shot at first place and it is therefore the only logical choice for the target film in this week’s box office prediction contest.In order to win, one must simply predict the opening weekend box office number for xXx: Return of Xander Cage.

Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going over, will win a Frankenprise consisting of their choice of either one TV on DVD release, two movies, or a kids package (could be a theatrical release, a couple of single-disc TV on DVD releases, or a full season TV on DVD release).
Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going under, will also win a Frankenprize, as described above.
Finally, we will be choosing an entrant from the group of people who haven't won, or haven't won recently, and they will win the final Frankenprize, as described above.

Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
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Full financial estimates for this film, including domestic and international box office, video sales, video rentals, TV and ancillary revenue
are available through our research services. For more information, please contact us at research@the-numbers.com.